THE Philosophical Magazine is now within two years of celebrating the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its first publication. The outlook of physical science has changed in the intervening years almost beyond recognition, and it has seemed desirable to the proprietors of the journal to alter the title, while retaining the familiar name of the Philosophical Magazine, in such a way as to indicate more clearly the scope of the journal. The old read "The London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, being a continuation of Tulloch's 'Philosophical Magazine'; Nicholson's 'Journal' and Thomson's 'Annals of Philosophy'"! The new title, which appears for the first time in the current number, is "The Philosophical Magazine, a Journal of Theoretical, Experimental and Applied Physics". The journal has had a long and distinguished career and has numbered among its editors some of the most eminent physicists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In its pages have appeared many papers of fundamental importance; during the present century, for example, classic papers by J. J. Thomson, Moseley, Bohr and Rutherford have been published in the journal which, despite a marked increase in the number and publications of the learned societies, still holds an honoured place among its contemporaries.